“He cheated on her,” Heather said flatly. Riley flinched, picking harder. “What reason could possibly make that okay?”
“People do make mistakes,” Dave pointed out.
“Look,” Riley said, waving a hand between them, “I appreciate this town hall approach to my problem. But I can handle this, okay?”
“You said that last time, though,” Heather pointed out.
Now Dave looked surprised. “Last time? Wait, he’s done this before?”
Riley looked up at him. “Well . . . yeah. There was this other thing, a couple of months ago.”
“You didn’t tell me about that,” he said.
“You were. . . .” Riley glanced at me. “Busy. At the time.”
“Oh,” Dave said.
“He got arrested,” Heather explained to me. Now Dave flinched. “What? It was one beer. I got busted for that inmiddleschool, it’s so basic.”
“Heather.” Riley’s voice was a bit sharp. “Remember when you said I should tell you when you’re crossing the lines of what’s conversationally appropriate?”
“Yeah.”
Instead of replying, Riley fixed her with a flat, hard stare. I could almost feel the weather changing around us, it was so severe. “Fine,” Heather said after a moment, picking up her phone. “Make your own choice. It’s your funeral.”
We all just sat there for a second, nobody talking, and I looked longingly over at the spot on the wall, where I’d been able to sit alone and worry about something small and easy like the whole of western civilization. I was just working up a way to get back over there when Dave said, “So. Mclean. How’s the entry been?”
“Entry?” I repeated.
“To this,” he said, gesturing with a flip of his hand at the courtyard. As he did so, I noticed for the first time the tattoo on his wrist. It was a black circle, in the same spot and the same shape as Riley’s. Interesting. “Our fine educational establishment.”
“Um,” I said, “it’s been . . . fine, I guess.”
“Glad to hear it,” he said.
“Of course it helps,” Heather said, tugging her hat down over her ears, “that she fell in with the right crowd.”
“And who would that be?” Dave asked.
She made a face at him. “You know, there are actually people who wouldloveto have the chance to hang out with me.”
“Oh, right. How is Rob these days?” he said.
“He’s history, not that it’s any of your business.” To me she said, “He can say what he wants, but he knows the truth. Me and Riley, we’re the best thing that ever happened to this boy.”
“Cut out the first two words of that sentence and I’ll agree with you,” Dave said. Heather rolled her eyes, but Riley looked up, giving him a wan smile.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Heather said. “I wish you two would just go out, fail miserably as a couple, and get it over with.”
“Well,” said Dave, sitting back, “it’s nice to know we’d have your blessing.”
Just then, I felt someone on my left. I glanced up, just in time to see Deb, her purse tucked tightly to her side, passing beside me. As our eyes met, her face brightened with recognition; when she saw I wasn’t alone, though, she bit her lip and kept moving.
I don’t know what possessed me to put in motion what happened next. It was impulse or instinct, the best or worst thing under the circumstances. Regardless, before I knew it, it was done.
“Hey,” I called out. “Deb!”
Beneath the table, Heather kicked my shin, but I ignored her. As for Deb, she was clearly so unused to being casually addressed at school that she visibly jumped at this, the sound of her own name, then whirled around to look at me, surprised, her mouth a tiny O shape. She was wearing jeans, a pink cardigan sweater, and a navy jacket. The ribbon in her hair matched her lip gloss, which mtched her quilted purse.
